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Finalists for PA Consulting’s annual Raspberry Pi programming competition, which brings ingenuity to life, have been selected. The 12 teams of school children will present their inventions to 13 expert judges on Tuesday, 30 April at Code Node in London.

PA, the global innovation and transformation consultancy, runs the annual competition to challenge primary, secondary and college students across the UK to invent, design and create using the Raspberry Pi microcomputer.

Entrants to the 2019 competition have been tasked to think innovatively, inspire change and use their ingenuity to transform experiences of travel and transport.

Some of the ideas that have made it through to the 2019 final include:

a voice activated bus stop audio message system to help the visually impaired to travel

a train safety and management system that captures real-time data and allows a train to react automatically in certain situations

a product to keep children safe in their car seats by issuing an alerts when they become unclipped

a facial recognition system to make bus travel easier, help the environment and prevent fraud.

The winning team in each category will receive £1,000 prize money.

Anita Chandraker, who leads the global innovation services at PA Consulting and is the sponsor for the competition, says: “The level of entries this year has been unbelievable. The school children and college students have already put a huge amount of effort into their inventions, with some really unique ideas that I can’t wait to see brought to life on the actual awards day.

“Our Raspberry Pi competition is a core part of our ongoing work to use innovative thinking to build a positive human future in a technology-driven world. The competition supports young people and gives them a platform for hands-on innovation and to develop their coding skills in a fun way, stretching their imagination to help solve real-world problems. We hope that the competition and the business people the students will meet at the awards day will inspire them to see the power technology can have in transforming the world and the role they might play in that journey.”

This year’s expert judging panel includes:

Jonathan Midgley, director of engineering, Trainline

Phil Maher, executive vice president, operations, Virgin Atlantic

Ben Story, strategic marketing director, Rolls-Royce

Sarah Wilkinson, CEO, NHS Digital

Philip Colligan, CEO, Raspberry Pi Foundation

Prof Andy Doherty, CTO, Network Rail

Jenny McGeough, operations director, Weir Group

Phil Graham, CEO, UK National Infrastructure Commission

Dominic Lenton, managing editor, E&T Magazine

Rory Cellan-Jones, technology correspondent, BBC

Nicola Debnam, regional director, South East, Highways England

Richard Orme, CTO, Photobox

Anita Chandraker, global head of innovation, PA Consulting

This year the competition has been supported by Rolls-Royce, Highways England and TFL, who have STEM initiatives as part of their outreach programmes.